AUSTRALIANS AT WAR

THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Mitt Romney has finally realised that the American electorate are not in the slightest bit interested in going off to fight another war for Israel. As a result of this belated epiphany Romney has back-pedalled on a strike against Iran saying that ‘military action against Iran may not be necessary’ – though, of course, the ‘military option is still on the table’. The statement clearly is designed to placate those Republican voters that are worried about going to war yet again.

Netanyahu too has also realised that he is going to get nowhere pushing for war this side of the elections and has told Obama that Israel will not be taking any action against Iran before the election. Netanyahu’s rhetoric against Iran has softened very slightly but only inasmuch that he concedes that sanctions against Iran are beginning to bite. However, this concession is offset by his belief that, while sanctions are having an effect on the ordinary folk of Iran, they are not affecting the Iranian leadership who, so Netanyahu believes, are continuing to covertly develop nuclear weapons. Again, Netanyahu’s pronouncements are designed only to take the urgency edge off of the Israeli threat of a so-called ‘unilateral’ strike against Iran before the election.

Both Romney and Obama have had long chats with Netanyahu over the last few days and, clearly, some arrangement has been made between them whereby Netanyahu has been promised that action will be taken after the election by whoever wins it.

For now, though, it is important for both Romney and Obama to put the war-talk on hold while they each concentrate on trying to get an American electorate that has no interest in war to vote for them.

After the election it’ll be back to Iran’s nuclear weapons program and when will the new president, together with Netanyahu, launch an attack.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday illustrated the extent to which he has become obsessive to the point of being delusional about Iran. Hopefully the world has opened its eyes and is aware of how barking mad paranoid Netanyahu now is over Iran.

While many Israelis are unable to avoid the overwhelming anti-Iran propaganda emanating from the right-wing Israeli Zionist press, they, nonetheless, are able to discern the path that Netanyahu is taking them down. And while Israelis have little time for many of Ahmadinejad’s pronouncements regarding the future of Israel, they are also very wary of being sucked into a war that will involve a lot more that taking aim at a few of Iran’s nuclear facilities. They are very much aware that a war against Iran is also a war against Hezbollah, Hamas and, more than likely, every hotshot Jihadist in the region that will come to fight against Israel’s forces.

In a recent poll it was found that only 27% of Israelis supported an attack against Iran. Most Israelis are very much aware of how devastating such a war could be for Israel. Israel’s government, however, is unlikely to take little notice of Israeli public opinion as most senior members of the government are dead set on using such a war to destroy Hezbollah and Hamas and, at the same time, use the opportunity to ultimately annex the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and, so they hope, south Lebanon up to the Litani River. They hope that the US will deal such a massive blow to Iran that it will induce regime change.

So far, US President Obama has not gone along with Netanyahu’s plans though has not ruled out the possibility that eventually, if the certain circumstances prevailed, he would indeed launch an attack against Iran. What Netanyahu wants is for Obama to spell out exactly what those certain circumstances might be. Netanyahu wants Obama to establish ‘red lines’ which would trigger a US attack against Iran.

But, with the presidential election looming just weeks away and Obama being an everything to loose president, he has refused to commit America to any ‘red lines’ knowing that in doing so he could drastically reduce his chances of a second term due to the American people being in no mood for any more wars for Israel. Netanyahu knows this but is keeping the pressure up anyway by suggesting that Israel may launch a ‘unilateral’ attack against Iran.

The problem here is; Israel is in no real position to launch a unilateral attack against Iran for reasons I have explained before at this blog. This, however, has not stopped Netanyahu’s rhetoric in an effort, not so much to convince Obama and the Western leaders of the need to attack Iran but to convince public opinion – especially Israeli public opinion – of the need to attack.

Supporting Netanyahu a little more vigorously than Obama is the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney who is backed in turn by the neoconservatives who know exactly what Netanyahu is trying to achieve.

Netanyahu knows that Obama is unlikely to act this side of the election but Netanyahu also knows that after the election, no matter who wins, he will have his war and the US will be there to finish off Iran for Israel.

An Obama win may well not suit Netanyahu’s own timetable. If it seems likely that Obama might prevail, Netanyahu might out desperation feel inclined to force Obama’s hand by instigating some false flag event which would be blamed on the Iranians. This could even possibly happen prior to the 6 November elections rather than soon after. While the next Israeli election are not scheduled to take place until October next year, the precarious nature of Israeli politics could dictate an election at any time if any one of the somewhat frail alliances with some of Israel’s other minor government parties break down. This makes Netanyahu a desperate man who is hell bent on achieving his lifelong ambition of creating a Greater Israel.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Any strike against Iran by Israel cannot possibly be ‘unilateral’. All talk of such a strike should be treated with the contempt it deserves because it does not reflect reality in any way.

There are four necessities that Israel must have in order to be able to launch a first strike against Iran – and all four can only be provided to them by the US. They are: first, fuel. Israel gets all its military fuel from the US. This includes literally millions of litres of JP-8 military jet fuel, millions of litres of gasoline and millions of litres of diesel fuel for its ground forces for use in invading and occupying south Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in order to prevent, so the Israelis will tell the world, retaliatory strikes by Hezbollah, Hamas and other jihadist groups. Second, the Israelis will need special bunker-busting munitions that only the US can supply. Third, despite Israel’s own well resourced intelligence organisations, the facilities offered by US intelligence would be essential for the logistics of an Israel first strike to be anywhere near successful. And, finally, the Israelis will need the full might of the US to prevent an Iran-launched counter attack against Israel and to go on to effect regime change in Iran.

An Israeli first strike against Iran, far from being a spontaneous knee-jerk response to a so-called ‘existential threat’ from Iran, will be a carefully and jointly premeditated attack that has been months, if not years, in the planning and will be executed with utter precision down to the very last detail.

Everything is now in place. An armada of battleships and carrier groups are assembled and ready for action. The propaganda machine is operating at full belch. It’s just a matter of when from now on.

No matter what happens, however, one can rest assured that any Israeli attack on Iran will not be ‘unilateral’.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

In Israel’s latest attempt to justify never giving the Palestinian people their freedom, Israel are attempting to make the resolution to the Palestinian refugee problem, created when Zionists created Israel in a land grab that went far beyond the requirements of Partition, contingent on there being a resolution to the so-called Jewish refugee problem caused by the reaction of Arab states to the Zionists original takeover of Palestinian lands. Based on the resolution of one problem being contingent on the resolution of the other, it’s clear that neither will ever happen – which, of course, is exactly why this new plan has been dreamed up.

Israel has never had any intention of resolving the Palestinian refugee problem which has been one of the fundamental demands of the Palestinians in reaching any settlement. Instead, Israel, rather than concede any lands to the Palestinians, has slowly and insidiously taken over the West Bank by creating Jewish settlements and interlinking them with a series of access roadways which are only available for use by Israelis.

Next thing you know Israel will be demanding that the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and south Lebanon up to the Litani River be annexed to Israel to compensate for the lands lost by Jews who became refugees from other Arab lands. Completely lost will be the fact that Jews lost their lands in other Arab countries in the first place due entirely to Zionists plundering Palestinian lands in what is now Israel.

The problem with this rhetoric that ‘Iran is rapidly approaching nuclearisation’ is that it’s been done to death in past rhetoric going back years. For example, here’s what I wrote more than two and a half years ago on the subject:

IRAN HAS BEEN CAPABLE OF HAVING A ‘NUCLEAR WEAPON WITHIN SIX MONTHS’ FOR YEARS NOW – BUT, LIKE ‘TOMORROW’, IT NEVER COMES.

Other periods of time have been mentioned over the three decades since the Iranian people kicked out the Shah as to how long it would take the Iranians to build a nuclear weapon, but six months seems to a very popular nominal figure. Never mind, of course, that there has not been a skerrick of evidence to even suggest that the Iranians are doing anything more than building nuclear reactors for generating electricity or creating medical isotopes for medical purposes. But that hasn’t stopped the propagandists who seem to insist that Iran is still only six months away from having a nuclear weapon.

If I started the list of claims that Iran would have a weapon within six months from back in 1980 when the Shah went, you’d still be reading it in, well… six months time! So, I’ll cut short the list and start it off with some of the earlier claims of this century.

Back in August 2003, the LA Times reported that Iran could have a ‘nuclear weapon in six months’. More than two years later in September 2005, Israel claimed Iran would have ‘nuclear weapon in six months’. Then, nearly three years later in June 2008 we were told again that Iran would have a ‘nuclear weapon in six months’. A year later, in July 2009, Ha’aretz reported that ‘Germany believes Iran could have a nuclear bomb in six months’.

Now, in the very latest statement dated 23 February 2010, made by so-called ‘Iran weapons expert’, David Albright, Iran, in his expert opinion, is now only… wait for it; six months away from having a nuclear weapon. This is the very same David Albright that was telling us more than a year ago in February 2009; “In as quickly as a few months, Iran would be able to have enough weapons-grade uranium for nuclear weapons”. It’s also the very same David Albright who told the CBS ’60 Minutes’ show way, way back in January 1999 that Saddam Hussein was “within a few months to a year of having a nuclear weapon”.

Albright? Not very! He’s the original boy that cried ‘Wolf!’ Unfortunately, the media will continue to echo his and similar cries and there will be those that believe them. Eventually the West, led by Israel and the US, will attack Iran based on these lies, but the worst of it is; hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of dead later, the rest of world will go along with it without a murmur.

Perhaps Krauthammer is not really any brighter than Albright after all.

One can only hope that there are plenty of folk out there who are brighter than either of them!

Saturday, September 08, 2012

I have said at this blog many times before that the purpose of any war against Iran is not about Iran’s ‘nuclear weapons program’ but about providing an opportunity for Israel to attack, invade and occupy south Lebanon up to the Litani River, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with a long term view to annexation, all on the pretext of pre-empting retaliatory attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the event of Israel and the US attacking Iran.

Today, as if to prepare the Israeli people of just such an eventuality, a report in YNet news.com stated that Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, told a conference that “if the cabinet deems it needed, the IDF can conquer and rule Gaza”.

Slowly, as the world approaches the final confrontation, the real aims of such a devastating war are emerging from the fog of Israeli and US propaganda.

Thursday, September 06, 2012

According to news reports over the last couple of days, the ‘Israeli war drums have been muted on Iran’. The threat of military action against Iran by Israel, according to Julian Borger at the UK Guardian, is ‘receding for now’. Likewise, Huffington Post reported that Israeli and US officials are “seeking to ease tensions that have emerged between the two allies over a possible Israeli military strike against Iran”.

However, as I have stated in previous posts, this whole business about ‘tensions having emerged between Israel and the US’ and ‘the threat of military action against Iran by Israel’ has always only ever been a propaganda charade. And, as I also said, there’ll be no attack against Iran this side of the US elections.

Meanwhile, much will depend on what happens in Syria over the next nine weeks as to what direction the propaganda war against Iran will take.

As most folk who have been following events in the Middle East realise, everything that happens there is connected to whatever else happens there. Everything is intertwined in the Middle East – and mostly it revolves around Israel.

Unfortunately, I think the war in Syria will just continue to grind away with the Syrian people caught in between doing the dying with, again, little being done by the US this side of the election to resolve the Syria crisis one way or the other.

Saturday, September 01, 2012

A report in the Jerusalem Post says that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lost his cool at US Ambassador Dan Shapiro over Obama’s continued stance that sanctions and diplomacy needs more time to work. “Time has run out”, says Netanyahu to Shapiro and Republican congressman Mike Rogers who was accompanying him.

According to the report Netanyahu was “particularly angry and stressed”; apparently “sparks flew”.

The question is: Is Netanyahu just playing the roll of the ‘let me at ‘em’ bad cop while Obama continues to play the ‘good cop’ role for a little longer until the election or is Netanyahu really going to go off like a loose canon?

It comes back to this: Netanyahu, whether he’s playing a role or not, cannot attack Iran without the full connivance of the US as I’ve explained many times elsewhere at this blog.

Netanyahu is certainly upping the ante; however, I still don’t think anything will happen this side of the Presidential election.

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About Me

is an Aeronautical Engineer, Historian and general carer of what goes on in the world.
Apart from an earlier career in engineering, Lataan also has a First Class Honours BA degree in History and a PhD in International Politics.
All material on this site is available for use without permission but it would be appreciated if the source is acknowledged.